Most people are aware that starting a blog is really a good way to wind up earning cash on the internet with their online business. The reason blogs are great cash makers is because you can actually monetize them using different available methods. Despite these multiple ways to earn cash from your blog, one thing will remain the same – you need traffic to generate any sort of online income. There are now blog directories on the internet which can actually help individuals generate the traffic that they need for their blog and to be able to start making money from it.

For those of you who are unaware of what a blog directory is, it’s a directory that lists other people’s blogs on their internet site making them searchable in search engines like google or bing. You are going to discover that there are different categories that end up matching the category of your blog to the category of the directory. Another thing you have to be aware of is the fact that these extra website links you are building for your blog will also help you raise your rankings in the major search engines. One more thing I should point out – people actually use blog directories to locate blogs that deal with particular topics they’re trying to look for.

You need traffic to generate any sort of online income

You’ll realize that submitting your blog to blog directories is something that is relatively easy to do even if you’re new to the internet. Further to your submission, you will most likely want to submit your blog to as many as you can possibly find in order to obtain the best results. You might be wondering where you are going to find these blog directories. This will take some research on your part which can be achieved directly through major search engines. A term or a phrase like “submit blog directories” can help you discover a lot of these types of directories that you could submit your blog to. You can make use of any search engine but you’ll notice that Google will always give the best and more reliable results. You can find a number of other ways to wind up advertising your blog but using blog directories is really simple and quick. RSS feed will be a another good way for you to market your blog using directories.

Regardless of how you intend to proceed, a blog directory should be something you can start using today and all throughout your Internet Marketing and Advertising career. Never give up, you can become successful in marketing with a blog.

Cyber security is now a major concern for any online business. With the rapid growth of cyber attacks like malware and particularly ransomware, even the most humble website needs to be secured.

Most websites today are built on the WordPress platform. Now personally, I LOVE WordPress because it is:

Free (and who doesn’t love that?)

Easy to update

Easy to customise (with a massive amount of themes and plugins available)

Well supported (easy to find solutions to common problems)

Optimised for SEO (easier for your content to get found online)

WordPress is perfect for business… and hackers

Unfortunately this popularity has a downside: it’s made WordPress a prime target for hackers and scammers. A hacked website can cost you thousands of dollars to recover, along with many hours of frustration.

Here are some ideas for protecting your online business.

FIRST – don’t use the standard “admin” username. Hackers using brute force attacks will start with this username because it is the default one, which is often not changed. You can make life harder for hackers simply by using something unique.

SECOND – PLEASE don’t use a common word as your password! The same hackers using brute force for your username will also be doing the same thing on your password. If you’ve made it “password”, “secret”, “belinda” or something else common, you’re just asking for trouble. The best passwords I find are a combination of a few small words separated by a #, %, * or some other character. This makes the passwords easier to remember but still hard to crack.

THIRD – Change your default admin login path from the default /wp-admin to something unique. There are several plugins you can find online to do this. While this step won’t deter the serious hacker, it will confuse and block the amateur.

FOURTH – Limit the number of login attempts. This will force the would-be-hacker to change their IP address and hopefully get so frustrated with you that they giveup. Well… you can live in hope, right?

FIFTH – Implement a captcha mechanism. Again this isn’t going to stop the serious hacker (they’ll be using decaptcha tools to work around your captcha!) but it is another security measure you can easily implement.

SIXTH – Install a decent security plugin. There are many out there including All In One Security. Using professional plugins will allow you to make other changes such as implement a website firewall, restrict access to key website files and more. In fact some plugins will let you change the previous 4 areas directly, making your life much easier! And it’s a lot more effective than trying to install 4 or 5 individual plugins to achieve the same result.

If you implement all of these steps, you’ll be well on your way to blocking those #$!#@? hackers, and keeping your site running fine!

Online marketing success is elusive for many people. Anybody who has read a long internet marketing sales letter, watched a video of a 20-something internet guru driving a Ferrari & living in a mansion, or read the latest “overnight success” news article about the person making a billion dollars by selling their app to a global company, has had the same idea – “why not me?”

Internet marketers have to fight between long term and short term goals

The main problem for this is that most of us think too short term. We see these success stories and we want the results, but we don’t appreciate the huge amount of goal setting (and hard work!) that took place to achieve those results.

Truth is, most of us struggle to think beyond lunch time – let alone where we want our online business to be in 6 months, 2 years or 5 years!

Keep a daily checklist to stay on track

What medium you choose to write your goals is up to you and your own personal style – on paper or in a digital format such as Evernote, or even Excel. The main thing is that your list is easily accessible and easy to update. No point keeping your goals in a draw or in a folder on your device that you never open!

Keeping your goals list front-and-centre will help keep you focused on what you should be doing at any given time.

The best way I find is to chunk down your goals: what do you want to achieve this year? To achieve those yearly goals, what do you have to achieve this month? To achieve those yearly goals, what steps do you need to take this month? To achieve those weekly goals, what steps do you need to take TODAY?

By breaking down your bigger goals you will create a true action plan for yourself, and improve your success of accomplishing your goals.

One of the biggest problems internet marketers face is the constant threat of “the shiny objects”. There are no shortage of new tools, WordPress plugins, “businesses in a box” and big promises of “easy money” that we can shift our focus from one thing to the next. The advantage of creating – and sticking to – a set of clear goals, allows you to say “NO!” to anything which doesn’t support your end game.

I’d also highly recommend unsubscribing from ANYBODY who emails you today with content that doesn’t align with your goals, or who is constantly trying to sell you something you “just can’t live without”.

It’s not easy, but if you can force yourself to create clear & meaningful goals for yourself, it will save you potentially years of spinning your wheels – and give you a greater sense of control.

With the advent of the social web, the opportunities have magnified to get exposure to your targeted traffic to your product on the internet. Today, marketing on the World Wide Web is a lot easier, and different than what it used to be say, seven years ago.

In the social revolution, Twitter happens to be a big help with internet marketers that are looking to tap into their market. A micro blogging service like Twitter, not only helps you get direct exposure for your product or service, but allows you to connect with prospects and build a relationship with them.

Grow Followers by Giving Value

Offer something of value in exchange for an email address

One method is to start following those in your niche to then have them follow you back. Well, there’s a particular flaw with this method and that is, the kind of followers you get like this are targeted, but not very responsive.

It’s basically “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch your back” approach. So how to you gain followers that are worth it? Give away value! When you tweet stuff that’s actually liked by people, you’ll see that a good number of them will re-tweet what you share with them, which will obviously give you more followers.

Use Your Real Picture

Show the world who you really are!

One of the issues that people face on the Internet is that they find it kind of difficult to trust others; so if you want to win their trust on sites like Twitter, you should sound and look as real as possible. Using your own picture that’s real will make your followers believe that you indeed are someone they can see and trust, and not someone who’s trying to scam them.

The most important thing you can do at Twitter is work on creating positive relationships, and that will give you an immense edge on your competition. It’s critical that you’re transparent on Twitter because people want to interact with genuine individuals. You simply must avoid being a business and concentrate on the more human aspects of marketing. Nobody appreciates being sold, but they will appreciate the person who is out in front of his or her business.

To sum it all up, you can stand out by doing small things with your Twitter account. Twitter can help you take your business to the next level but helping you brand it, and effectively grow with your target market. Have you been waiting for a social tool to interact easier with your prospects or customers, then this is the tool you have been waiting for. You can describe Twitter as a micro blogging service as well a full management system for businesses!

Once you begin your web business, you will soon discover there is a great deal more to it than you thought. It is totally normal for someone to have problems setting up this type of business. It’s not your fault!

Having a great perspective, knowing what is going on around you, can help you stay focused. You need to keep your business priorities in order which is something you learn along the way. As long as you know what they are, you can tend to them as things come up. The key is to be fluid, ready to go with whatever comes your direction, and being able to handle those challenges as they come.

If your email list is unresponsive and your open rates are dismally low, you might need to consider taking a new direction. This means taking a realistic look at your current efforts. Identify any of those who never even open your emails and remove them from your list.

You also can go so far as to remove anyone who never buys a thing from you. This leaves you with time to focus on attracting a better list of people. Lots of things can cause your list to become unresponsive, so work on attracting the right people and focus your messages differently.

Online marketing is hard work – especially when you’re inexperienced!

One myth that many beginners fall prey to is that of passive income or an autopilot business. Even those marketers who do manage to have a business that’s mostly automated had to spend a long time building it up to that level.

This is simply the wrong mentality for a new marketer to have, as it implies that you are trying to avoid paying your dues and building up your business. You have to put in a lot of time and effort to get your site into profitability. Some people claim you can run a business on autopilot by outsourcing all of your essential tasks, but then you must oversee the whole outsourcing process and make sure everyone does what they promise.

If you have a sales letter, you may believe that this is the most important aspect of the sales funnel on the website that you have. In reality, your business is only as good as the traffic that you receive, not the sales page that is on your website right now. Your primary goal is to bring the most targeted traffic possible to your website in order to make your business grow. You need to have quality traffic that is targeted for your specific offer, or your sales letter will simply be pointless. As long as you are able to put targeted traffic in front of a killer offer, you will make a lot of money selling your product or service.

One thing about marketing and employing various tactics and strategies is they often take

Money will come but it will take time & effort

you back to the fundamentals. Great salesmen and marketers, for instance, have long understood the value of building solid relationships with people they want to do business with. As well known as this is, all too many online businesses forget all about it.